Southern Miss Falls at FAU 89-74

"We played our tails off, but FAU just shot the cover off the basketball." said Head Coach Joye Lee-McNelis.

Southern Miss dug themselves into an early deficit, not scoring until there was 2:46 left in the first quarter, but could not combat the 53.4 percent that the Owls shot from the floor despite flipping the scripting in the second half and outscoring FAU 55-42 in the second half of play. Southern Miss also topped the Owls in rebounds, 39 compared to 31, points in the paint, 46 matched to 36, and second chance points, 15 paralleled to 6.

The Lady Eagles had four players with a dozen or more, the fourth time this season that the Black and Gold have had four scorers with double-digit outputs. Jayla King paced Southern Miss for the 14th time this season, 19th of her career, with 22 points. The Florida native has now put together six 20 or more point games during her 89 appearances in a Southern Miss jersey, five of them coming during the 2017-2018 campaign.

Respect Leaphart, who also calls the Sunshine State home, collected 13 points, Megan Brown gathered 17 points and Alarie Mayze scored 14. This is just the second career double-figure scoring game of Mayze's career and Brown extended her streak of games with 10 or more points to 10 contests.

King's 22 total points gives her 970 career points, needing to only average 10 points in the each of the next three contests to become the Lady Eagles' 27th player to hit 1,000 career points. Southern Miss has also grabbed 971 total rebounds on the year, inching closer to 1,000 total rebounds for the season. The Lady Eagles have corralled 1,000 rebounds each season under the direction of McNelis and every season except one since the 1998-1999 campaign.

Southern Miss travels home for a Senior Day contest against UTEP at 2 p.m. on Sunday. The game will feature the Hattiesburg Fire Department facing off against the Hattiesburg Police Department in a game of hoops at halftime and tickets are just 4 dollars for public officials and first responders. Fans can watch the games on CUSA.TV or listen to Josh West on the broadcast via The Score 1400 AM or the Southern Miss Game Day App starting 30 minutes before tipoff.